"Learning to Change: The Experience of Transforming Education in South Eastern Europe, is a gem of the field, rare in its qualitative readings of the personal lives and stories of people personally engaged in ‘‘on the ground’’ school reform efforts in the tumultuous 1990s from Albania, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. When so many books on topics of education and development are abstract treatises, this collection is a read that is almost literary-autobiographical in quality. In the words of its editor and contributors, this does not mean those typical studies do not have value – they do. ‘‘We created this volume of many voices about education change to complement official reports and scholarly research’’. While the ‘‘stacks’’ of such documentation are necessarily written ‘‘with a certain detachment’’, they also thereby tend not to, intentionally or not, ‘‘uncover the hardest truths about the school situation and its politics.’’
Higher Education in Europe
"The collection covers reform programs in nine education systems – each summarized in helpful annexes of statistical data and detailed chronologies... All the stories in this book reveal that there are many individuals working for change with energy, passion and commitment. Where these reformers are lucky enough to find an enlightened government which gives them space to work, and where they are supported, perhaps by a non-governmental organization or a generous benefactor, they can make an important contribution to improving the lives of young people."
TOL Transitions Online